Verizon’s Data Breach Report Findings ‘Underscore the Importance of a Multi-Layered Defense Strategy’

Verizon surveyed about 22,000 security incidents and 12,000 data breaches. Ransomware incidents increased, while the median ransom payment dropped.

Cyberattacks through third parties are on the rise, according to the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. And, the percentage of VPNs and edge devices in attacks classified as exploitation of vulnerabilities grew nearly eightfold compared to the 3% instance rate in the previous report.

Verizon studied 12,195 data breaches out of 22,052 real-world security incidents collected between Nov. 1, 2023 to Oct. 31, 2024, from more than 100 data contributors globally.

Exploitation of vulnerabilities increased

Exploited vulnerabilities increased by 35% and represented 20% of all initial access vectors. The most common attack vector remains credential abuse (about 22%), according to the 18th annual report. The exploitation of vulnerabilities (about 20%) and phishing (about 16%) follow.

“Organizations worked very hard to patch ...